Railways takes measures to prevent train derailments

In a written reply to a question raised by an MP in Lok Sabha, Manoj Sinha, Minister of State for Railways has given the following measures taken up by Indian Railways to prevent derailments:

• Upgradation of Track Structure consisting of Pre Stressed Concrete (PSC) sleepers, 52 kg., high strength (90kg/mm2 ultimate tensile strength) rails on concrete sleepers, fanshaped layout on PSC sleepers, Steel Channel Sleepers on girder bridges adopted on most of the routes.
• Track structure is being standardized with 60 kg rails and PSC sleepers on all the Broad Gauge routes, especially on high density routes, to reduce fatigue of rails under higher axle-load traffic.
• New construction and replacement is done with PSC sleepers only.
• Long rail panels of 260 Meters/130 Meters length are being manufactured at the steel plants to minimize number of welded joints.
• Reduction in Thermit welded joints on rails, use of SPURT Cars for Rail flaw detection.
• All rails and welds are ultrasonically tested as per laid down periodicity.
• Progressively shifting to flash butt welding which is superior in quality compared to Alumino Thermit (AT) welding.
• Progressive use of modern track maintenance machines viz. Tie Tamping, Ballast Cleaning Machines, Track Recording Cars, Digital Ultrasonic Flaw Detectors, Self Propelled Ultrasonic Rail Testing Cars, etc.
• Two, Rail Grinding Machines are being procured.  Rail Grinding and rail lubrication for enhanced rail life and reliability has been recently introduced.
• Electronic monitoring of track geometry is carried out to detect defects and plan maintenance.
• Modern Bridge inspection techniques for determining health of the bridges.
• Introduction of Wheel impact Load Detector (WILD).
• Regular patrolling of railway tracks at vulnerable locations including night patrolling and intensifying patrolling during foggy weather.
• To minimize effects of accidents, LHB coaches with Centre Buffer Couplers and having anti-climbing features, are being inducted in the fleet of coaching stock of Indian Railways.